The Maharashtra government on Friday told the Bombay High Court that it had decided to drop sedition charges against cartoonist Aseem Trivedi.

Attorney General Darius Khambatta admitted before the HC court that the sedition charges against Trivedi were a "bonafide knee jerk reaction" to numerous complaints received by the police against cartoons drawn by Trivedi.

"After having a close look at the case, we found that there is clearly no case under Section 124(a) of the Indian Penal Code for sedition. Hence, the government has decided to drop invocation of the charge against Mr Trivedi," Mr Khambata said.

The move by the state government was expected as the state government and the Mumbai police faced a lot of flak from all quarters for booking Trivedi under sedition for drawing the cartoons. Even the Bombay High Court slammed the move to book Aseem for sedition.

One of Aseem Trivedi's cartoon's which landed him in trouble on sedition charges.

On Friday a division bench of Chief Justice Mohit Shah and Justice N.M Jamdar said, "Arresting him (Trivedi) was bad enough, but the police also sought his custody. That was more shocking". The Court said that if the police had not arrested Trivedi, no one would have known about the cartoons or the cartoonist.

The court said that it would look into how sedition charges were to be applied in future.

"In order to prevent such cases in the future the court should hear this matter on scope of Section 124(a) (sedition). The state government has proposed to come out with a circular indicating the limitations and parameters of the said section," said the court.

Alongside, the Advocate General informed the court that the state would draft a circular on section 124 (a) and it would be shown to the Chief Justice for approval after which it would be sent to all police stations. The Court has directed the government to submit a draft circular by October 19.

While the sedition case against Aseem has been dropped, the cartoonist continues to face other cases. Khambatta told the court that out of the seven cartoons drawn by Trivedi, the state had found violations in three. "There are three cartoons that violate the National Honour Act and Information Technology Act. Proceedings in this regard will continue against him," he said.